Stay With Me
by Sasusc
Summary: They thought they had the rest of their lives together but they hadn’t counted on fate. Spoilers for 413 Journey's End


Title: Stay With Me

Author: Sasusc

Characters: Rose, Ten

Word Count: 3701

Spoilers: Journey's End

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Summary: They thought they had the rest of their lives together but they hadn't counted on fate.

* * *

It was unfair. One short year was nothing to the forever they had promised each other. Why couldn't they have their forever, a happy ending? Didn't they deserve that much? After all they've been there, the years of separation, why did it have to end like this?

She cried. She couldn't stop the tears from falling. She didn't know if she could. Rose held tightly to his hand, leaning slightly over his rigid form. She never wanted to let go. She squeezed his hand as his face contorted in pain that he couldn't hide.

"Rose," he whispered. "So, so sorry." How many times had he uttered those words? How many times had he wished he could go back and fix things? He lifted his hand to caress her face. He forgotten there was blood on his hands and now it colored her pale check.

"You can't leave me," she cried out. She used her free hand to tug his hand to her mouth. Gently, she kissed it. "It took me so long to find you gain. Please," she begged. "Please stay with me."

He couldn't sum up enough energy to smile. "You'll see me again. Find…a way to cross back to your original world." It was a command as much as it was a prediction. Rose would grieve for him, but she'll found a way back--a way back to _him_--it would help to heal them both. She was forever finding a way back to him.

Rose leaned down and kissed him. "I need _you_. I can't survive years without you again." She pressed a kiss to his check. Her tears splattered against his skin. "I can't do it! I just--" Her sobs robbed her of her words.

"Rose… I love you. Remember that. My love for you will never fade with time." He drew in a shaky breath. "He's all alone now. I…I didn't want to tell you and let you suffer with the pain and guilt. Donna, she… Donna Noble wouldn't have been able to survive being a Time Lord--not even half of one. It's too much for a human to take. I--he would have taken it away from her. Everything," he whispered. "Donna wouldn't have been able to remember me--us. She's forgotten it all. She had too if she's to live." Why did it hurt to breath? Death never seemed this painful before. Could it be because he knew this was forever? There was no regeneration in store for him. He was only a human with one life to live and this was it. No more for him no matter how much he wished it was different.

"He's traveling alone now. Oh, my Rose…my sweet, brilliant Rose! He needs you more than ever."

"You need me."

He started to laugh, but it only sent more pain throughout his body. "I'm dying, Rose. I won't need you much longer. But you still need me, and he still needs you."

"No, no, no!"

He threaded his fingers through her hair. He slowly tugged her head down to his face. Check to check, he whispered into her ear. Her fingernails dug into the hand she still refused to release as he passed along his words, instructions, and finally his farewell.

"Rose Tyler…I love you."

She screamed as his hand--his whole body--fell slacked in her arms. She slumped forward letting her head fall on his motionless chest. Agony, fast and burning, spread through her as she heard nothing. Nothing at all.

* * *

Across Universes, a lonely Time Lord slump forward onto the controls of the TARDIS. White hot agony shot throughout his body. Never before had he felt pain such as this--not since he lost Rose to Pete's World. The first time; never the second. His pain over losing Rose a second time was overlapped with his happiness for her. That goodbye didn't hurt as much as it did the first time.

Rose Tyler was safe and happy in Pete's World. She had her Doctor by her side for the rest of their human lives. She would never be lonely again, and she would be sharing her life with the man she always wanted. The human Doctor was the man he couldn't be; he was allowed to love her and share his entire existence with her. They could grow old together. They could start a family. They could have the life he denied himself.

As long as he knew Rose was safe and happy, he could bare her loss once again. It was how he fought with himself from destroying their worlds with his selfish feelings for wanting her by his side. Pete Tyler had saved her from falling into the Void, and it was safe in that universe he was determined to keep her.

The decision to leave her there with his human self had been a painful one, but it had been the right thing to do. They needed each other more then he needed her. His human self had much to cope with: becoming a human, stuck on one planet, the lost of his Gallifreyan senses (as least some of them), the lost of the TARDIS, committing genocide… Rose would pick up the broken pieces and repair the man as she once done to him years ago.

His pain eased as he banished thoughts of Rose from his mind. He had things to do, places to go. Somewhere out there in the vast space of this universe was a planet that could use his help. The TARDIS would find the best location to land. He pressed several buttons and pulled down a lever. His destination was in the hands of his spaceship. He needed something to keep his mind off of the recent events. A bit of running would do nicely for a distraction.

* * *

Hours later, Rose curled herself around his pillow surrounding herself with his scent. Her parents had been called when they couldn't get her to relinquish the Doctor's dead body. Her mother had wrapped her arms around her body offering the only comfort a mother her give her grieving daughter.

"It's alright, love," her mother had whispered. "Come home with me. He'll want you to take care of yourself. Oh, Rose, sweetheart."

Rose wasn't sure what finally made her turn from the cold body into her mother's warm arms. She had hugged her tight as she buried her head into her sweater. Jackie rocked her and smoothed her hands down her back.

"He's gone, mum. He's never coming back."

"Shh, shh, shh," Jackie replied. "Let's get you home."

But on the car ride to the Tyler mansion, Rose had persuaded Jackie to turn back to her apartment. Immediately she had rushed to their room and thrown herself on their bed.

Her tears were dry now. She spent them all in the hours since her arrival. She could hear her parents talking softly somewhere within their tiny apartment. She couldn't make out the words, but she knew they were concerned for her. Maybe later she would get up and talk to them--tell them that one day she _might _be alright, maybe far into the future.

Their final moments replayed through her mind

"_My Rose_," she could hear him say, whispering into her ear. "_Listen to me_."

She was listening now, remember his words.

"_Those first beginning months when we were so insecure of our true feelings for each other, I couldn't stand to see you in pain. You were grieving for him, and I decided that I would find a way to send you back to him at the cost of my happiness. I would have done anything to keep you happy_." He had paused to gently rub his check against hers. "_I built a machine; it locks on a specific energy signal. The heart of the TARDIS. When it's activated, it'll reunite a smaller signal with the larger original one._" He told her where to locate the device and started to explain the mechanics of it. He must have felt he didn't have the time to fully explain it all as he cut off in mid sentence. The Doctor just said this: "_It should bring you to the TARDIS--our TARDIS in our universe. You'll find your way back to him. Be happy. It's all I ever wanted for you_." And then it was his final words to her. "_Rose Tyler…I love you_."

She shook with shock as his words finally sunk in. She could have her doctor back, the one who had left them here and gave them everything they always wanted. It took awhile for her to love the Doctor and not feel guilty that there was another Doctor in another universe that had to continue on without her. In the end, she rationalized the situation by believing that the other Doctor would never be alone. He had Donna to look after him now, and she would make sure he was never alone again. Donna would help him get through his lost.

But Donna hadn't been there. Her memories were taken away from her somehow, and she wouldn't remember to take care of the Doctor. He's been traveling alone all this time grieving over the lost of his companion and for her. Maybe he found a new companion to travel with now, but did she really want to bet on that? They had thought they would grow old together and look how that turned out. She couldn't take that chance again. She had to find a way back to the Doctor. She promised she would stay by his side forever, and she wasn't going to allow his death and parallel worlds to keep her from him. She would do anything, risk anything, to stay by his side.

* * *

He never did liked sleeping. Dreams weren't always made of rainbows and bananas. No, they were filled with something much darker. His dreams consisted of death and destructions. Some of the deaths were caused by him while others were the results of his failure. It didn't matter how or why they had all died, they continued to torment him in one way or another. All of his regrets manifested in his dreams, taunting him with decisions he should have made.

Tonight, it seemed, his dreams wanted to torture him with Rose. He had not dreamed of her in this kind of setting since he found her. He had closed that chapter of his life when he walked away from her and his human self. He didn't have to worry about her; she had a version of himself to watch over her. Rose Tyler was living a happy life in Pete's World. He locked all doors labeled "Rose Tyler" and buried it deep within his mind as he done with his wife and children all those centuries ago.

He could still recall the dream in perfect detail. Rose was in pain. She was calling his name. _Find me_, she kept whispering in-between his name, _Doctor. Find me, Doctor_. Her mantra filled his ears, digging little arrows into his heart. He tried to find her, but all he saw was the central console of the TARDIS. So it was there he found himself standing.

The TARDIS had a bad case of the hiccups lately that needed daily, if not hourly, maintenance. It worked perfectly with his need to keep busy. He sighed as he ran a hand over the controls feeling the slight life-force of the TARDIS with his fingertips. She hiccupped underneath his palm.

"Oi," he said, "when are you going to shake this, hmm? It's not good for you."

The TARDIS launched beneath him. He quickly grabbed a lever to steady himself. The hiccups must be a side effect to something larger messing with his ship. He moved towards a scene and pulled up the diagnostic program to run some tests. Everything appeared to be normal--the same as the last time and the time before last… There was nothing there to indicate a problem.

"Unless it's affecting the diagnostic tests!" He grinned triumphantly as he used a nearby keyboard to pressed several seemingly random buttons before turning a knob ninety degrees to the left. "Let's see what this does."

The TARDIS started shaking. The Doctor frowned as she sent out a distress signal that triggered the lights and sounds going off. He ran to the other side of the console and banged a few times on a large button. The lights turned off, but the sirens still blared across the ship. A slight flick of his wrist to a knob quickly took care of the noise.

"Come on, girl. Tell me what's wrong." This was more then a simple grieving over lost--well, not so lost as he knew exactly where and when they were--companions. It was his top reason for the hiccups after he couldn't find a thing wrong with her.

She pulled out of the vortex that they had been floating aimlessly in for the last several days. Or had it been a week? It was hard to tell. He checked a screen but it remained blank telling him nothing about where they landed.

Music, soft and low and beautifully haunting, filtered through his mind. It was a psychosomatic song that belonged to his TARDIS. He hadn't heard her sing like this in some time and it froze him where he stood as he listened. His eyes drifted closed as the song seeped into his soul. It was a healing song, he realized immediately as he felt his body respond and became infused with a smoothing warmth.

"Doctor." The voice was familiar yet held a metallic tone.

His dark eyes popped opened. A shimmering, golden form glowed brightly before him. It kept fluctuating from an amorphous shape to that of a human woman. Gradually the figure stabilized to look more human than alien. But it was the woman's features that shocked the Doctor more then finding an entity in his TARDIS.

"You can't be," he half whispered. "Who are you?"

The entity smiled. "My Doctor."

The TARDIS's song crescendoed around him trying to rip apart the wall he had built around his hearts. It rammed the walls with love and desire, heartbreak and loss, too much for one man to take. The powerful emotions the song evoked forced him to his knees in front of her.

The woman reached down to caress his check. Her hand was pure energy and radiated warmth. He almost closed his eyes to lean into the caress but stopped himself. He didn't want to take his eyes off of the woman.

"Who are you?" he repeated. The words came out hoarser than he thought they would be. He licked his lips and swallowed in hopes of clearing it up. "Tell me."

"It's me, Rose. Your Rose."

He denied it instantly stating Rose's present location and the impossibility of her being here now in front of him. A wild, disbelieving look began creeping onto his face.

She crouched down to his eye level. "I've come back, I have. I promised to be by your side forever."

"Rose is by my side. She's just in another universe living it with my…other self."

Her form briefly flickered into the amorphous state as if his words hurt. She returned back to her previous state except this time it held more human outline than she had before. Once again she reached out to him; her hand felt heavier against his check, more human.

The Doctor gasped in pain as images--no memories--wrenched themselves into his mind and forcing him to feel every jolt of happiness and pain each memory held. First it was the pain of knowing she was being abandon by the one she loved the most. The guilt and desire over loving the same but different man. Then the exulting freedom to love and be love in return. The sudden, mind numbing feeling of disbelief as she watched the scene unfold in front of her. "Stop!" he wanted to shout but his lips refused to move. He knew exactly how the memory ended, and he didn't want that heartache to invade his senses. It was too late to place up walls to block the feelings for the next memory transfer: the total gut-wrenching agony she felt when she watched the colors around her fade to black with breath, the rising of his chest becoming slower as the minutes ticked by until it eventually refused to rise again.

Seconds later the images were gone, although the feelings lingered behind. Tears ran down his checks as the woman he loved fully materialized in front of him. A slight golden aura was the only proof of her energy form. He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. He buried his face into the crook of her neck and sobbed.

Rose was lucky that her arms weren't pinned to her side by his death grip on her. She was able to coil them around his back and up to his head. She buried her fingers into his hair offering what comfort she could.

"I'm sorry. I hadn't realized… The TARDIS intensified the memories. Shh," she whispered as she rocked him.

He knew her statement for what it was: a lie. He didn't call her on it. He didn't know if he could without breaking. He was slowing rebuilding his defenses, but it was taking much longer than he wished.

Neither one knew how long they stayed wrapped around each other. Their tears had dried awhile ago and their muscles ached with discomfort, unused to holding that position for a long amount of time. The Doctor could have stayed in that position--on his knees half kneeling, half leaning and holding her close to his hearts--for awhile more but he knew that Rose needed to stretch out her body. He loosened his arms; however, he couldn't quite release his hold on her. They remain casually touching some part of her body. One of his hands moved up to her face to push a strand of hair behind her ear. She was completely human, no trace of the golden energy on her.

"Rose," he breathed. He could almost smile. Almost, just not yet. "I'm sorry, so sorry."

She gave a teary laugh, holding back the tears that threaten to reappear. "I'm getting better. I'll be okay now that I'm here."

Rational thoughts slowly returned forming questions he should have asked earlier. "How did you get here? There's no impossible way for you to cross universes like this and not tear a hole in both realities."

"Knew you would say that. You need to stop saying 'impossible', you know. You use it too often." His lips twitched at the smile that lit up her face. "The Doctor…the other Doctor…well, he invented this machine. It reunited the piece of the time vortex--the TARDIS's soul actually--still left inside of me with the TARDIS. It would match no other TARDIS in any parallel world except this one. He said this was the only sure way for me to safely cross the Void."

Horror crossed his face as theories raced across his mind. "No, no, no, Rose. Tell me he didn't! He couldn't have known what kind of effects that'll have on you." He reached into his pocket for his sonic screwdriver. He needed to check her over for any damages or side effects.

Rose halted the movement. "He knew. He wrote me a letter explaining. I knew the risked I was taking when I activated the device." The Doctor spelled out the warnings clearly. The device would transform her into the same kind of energy that made up the heart of the TARDIS. As she was in an alternate world, it shouldn't have the same deadly affect on her as it did the time she looked into the TARDIS's soul. He was sure that her body had safely absorbed the energy into her body over time, helping to deflect the poisonous results. In this form she could cross the Void easily. As with everything, it came with a price.

She told the Doctor in front of her all of this. It took longer than she thought for him to work out what price she had to pay. Realization hit; he shifted his eyes away from her towards the console. His hand slid down her arm and gripped her hand. He squeezed it gently.

"Once the two pieces are reunited, there is no way to separate the two."

Rose nodded her head. "Me and the TARDIS are one. If she's to die…"

"It's possible you will too."

She patted the metal grating of the floor. "She's tough. She'll survive."

"And if you were to die?"

Her fingers curled around the metal holes. "The TARDIS believes she'll be able to sustain me. It'll hurt and probably keep me in bed for awhile, but I'll probably live." She decided to revise it, "I'll most definitely live." She moved their clasped hands to her lap. She looked up into his beautiful dark eyes and smiled. "Forever. I'll live forever by your side. I can keep that promise more now than ever before. That is, if you'll have me," she added.

He leaned forward to place a chaste kiss on her lips. The Doctor studied her reaction. A grin was working its way across her lips. A slight blush on her checks and a sparkle in her eyes were also a testament to her joy over the impromptu kiss. He stood up, finally relinquishing physical contact with her. Not for long--never for long. He grinned triumphantly down at her as he held his hand out to her.

"Rose Tyler, will you stay with me…forever?"

She couldn't stop the huge grin from spreading across her face even if she wanted to. Rose took his hand. He jerked her into his arms.

"I'm bloody brilliant," he exclaim.

Rose laughed as she playfully hit him. "What an ego!"

He couldn't resist kissing her again. "And you're absolutely fantastic, Rose Tyler! I shall never doubt your ability to always come back to me." He spun her around to the sound of their laughter.

The End


End file.
